


hope you're ready for a firefight ('cause the devil's got your number tonight)

by chraezanty17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-31
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-05-30 08:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6416158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chraezanty17/pseuds/chraezanty17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He drunk-dials her when he stumbles out of the bar in the middle of Sam's bachelor party to inhale oxygen instead of cheap stripper perfume for a change and tells her she is a goddess for revealing Joffrey as the pathetic moron he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hope you're ready for a firefight ('cause the devil's got your number tonight)

Her nail polish is tacky. Some of it comes off in flakes as she snatches a crumpled fiver from the bar and asks him if he's here to watch the show. He turns his head to look at her, but the black hoodie both drowns her upper body and casts her face in shadow, rendering her features unreadable.

"Yeah, I guess. What about you?"

She leaves him sitting there, drink halfway to his mouth.

The band that comes on fifteen minutes late consists of men aged thirty-five to forty. Their vocalist is a girl of no more than nineteen years with pipes that will bring the roof of the bar down on them many times over.

It is only after they exit the stage to the lukewarm applause of the thoroughly wasted that the singer puts on a familiar sweatshirt and Jon recognizes her for the woman that asked him his reason for being at the seedy club in the first place.

He ends up paying for her beer and notices a row of numbers scrawled on his forearm the next day during family dinner.

* * *

Where they would meet had been her choice.

This club isn't his scene.

"Do you want to dance with me?"

She raises an eyebrow. "You know nothing, Jon Snow. This isn't prom. Here there be mosh pits and broken glass on the floor."

He takes her hand and could swear he hears her laughter as they are swallowed up by the crowd.

* * *

They meet again at Sam and Gilly's engagement party, where Joffrey has taken it on himself to ridicule Sansa when she does not make use of the bar. His cheeks are red, his eyes glazed and his hands wandering so far from her waist as to make the auburn-haired girl squirm.

Ygritte grabs him by the collar with a strength that is almost casual and points out that alcohol tends to make people stupid, doubly so those that are underage. She hugs Sansa after he has fled the scene and places a napkin with a huge piece of lemon cake on it as she claims it to be an occasion of celebration and she deserves way better anyhow.

Jon kisses her when Grenn is making his toast and all the attention is on the happy couple of the day.

* * *

He drunk-dials her when he stumbles out of the bar in the middle of Sam's bachelor party to inhale oxygen instead of cheap stripper perfume for a change and tells her she is a goddess for revealing Joffrey as the pathetic moron he is. She says he's full of it, her own speech slurred as she mocks him, claiming that as he is clearly unable to hold his liquor very well, he lacks the major quality a best man simply must have.

She hangs up on him before he can call her out on her bullshit.

* * *

Ygritte has her own methods of taking care of her voice. She won't smoke as to not lose her tone but he has seen her roll herself a joint on numerous occasions. Alcohol is a no go before or during a performance because it kills lyrics and pronunciation but she is not above a round with her good old friend Molly. Even so, when he asks her about her habits the only response on offer is a snort since her music career will inevitably crash and burn in three years' time, anyway.

He goes to each of her shows and counts the bruises on his body, battle scars from enduring first row.

* * *

She pulls him into the bathroom stall of the restaurant and unbuckles his belt.

He gulps in air. "Robb and Jeyne are out there-"

"So what?" She murmurs, fingertips dancing underneath his shirt and moving to slide his pants down his hips, taking the boxers with them.

"We have never-"

He closes his eyes when he feels the heat of her mouth. He throws his head back against the door because, really, he has never wanted to fight her on this in the first place.

* * *

Jon gets her two tickets to a local music festival for her birthday and for less than a second, her mask cracks. She is insecure, eyes glued to the piece of paper in her hands as if it was gold - with her income being about as stable as a house of cards, it might as well have its value. There is a certain sweetness to her features that is completely gone by the time security asks her why it is that she has punched the man who now sports a broken nose.

"He yelled that the band playing was shit without having the faintest idea how fucking hard they have to work for it every day."

They refuse to take her explanation for an answer.

* * *

She will patch old blouses and pants tenfold but won't for the life of her let debts keep her hands off Doc Martens' boots. They belong to her feet like the stars that cling to the sky, like he thinks of her hand in his as she leans out of the window when he drives his car at a hundred miles an hour.

He finds her collapsed against the wall of the recording booth in her own private studio. When asked what is the matter the singer laughs and it is an exquisitely hopeless sound to Jon's ears. Records have not been selling well - or at all - and while her schedule for the next five months is full and the band cannot catch a break from gigs, it's not all roses and riches.

They get drunk on cheap wine from the supermarket around the corner. He goes down on her and for a little while she has no time left to spare for worries.

* * *

He strokes her hair as if it is the Holy Grail and tells her its deep red is the most beautiful color the world has ever seen. Ygritte flinches, edging towards the right side of the bed, and throws him a kiss over her shoulder while her thoughts are obviously elsewhere.

The day after the next she has dyed her hair blue.

* * *

It is the beginning of the new year and there are more or less fifty dollars in her bank account.

She is nursing her hangover, chugging aspirin like they're M&Ms, when an E-Mail notification catches her interest. Five minutes later, she has spent forty dollars on a concert ticket. When Jon asks her if she is sure that she has made the right decision she throws him out of her apartment.

* * *

They are not living together, it is just that she falls asleep in his bed every night after sex.

* * *

He is woken up by the clatter of frying pans and a mixer. The alarm clock on his nightstand proclaims time to be frozen at midnight and the right side of the mattress is cold with empty air.

Jon staggers down the corridor to follow the pale trail of a light bulb flickering at uneven intervals.

Ygritte has turned the kitchen into a battlefield - plates, silverware, spices, knives and half-empty wine glasses each filled with a different beverage are strewn across both the dining table and the counter.

"You hungry?" She mumbles around a mouthful of instant noodles, her left hand securely wrapped around the plastic cup, savoring the warmth within. Her back is turned to him, her eyes only briefly flickering from the cooking meal to the culinary equivalent of dishwater.

"No, thanks. What are you even cooking?"

Weeks of pizza from the refrigerator sprinkled with days of Chinese takeout in between flash before his eyes. Since she has not so much moved in as taken over the apartment he has not been able to rinse the taste of curry chicken from his mouth.

"Roasted duck with sage-butter sauce. I also wanted to have some soufflé but we are out of milk and I had to improvise. Champagne mousse?"

* * *

She isn't deep in debt, it's just that tips at her new job as a waitress have started flowing in since red lipstick and low-cut tops have become a reality.

* * *

Jon rifles through the mail and finds a warning to pay last three months' rent for her old apartment that he can testify has not been properly lived in for about double the time. When confronted, she shrugs.

"It's still my home."

"But you're living here!"

A good-natured snort. "No, I'm not."

He runs his fingers through his hair, ripping at the roots. "Don't be an idiot, of course you are."

"I'm not a co-owner of this building and am also not paying mortgage."

"Since when do you know what mortgage _is_?"

"Since I stopped living in a shit apartment, which was never."

He grabs her wrist when she attempts to sliver out of the corridor. "Then pay for your home."

She twists her arm until it hurts to keep hold of her, so he lets go. The door slams in his face and there is a ringing in his ears until an hour later when Ygritte texts him to watch some porn and not wait up.

* * *

She runs off, disappears for two months before turning up at his doorstep one monday morning half an hour before he has to leave for his internship. He can't help but breathe in the thick stench of marihuana tangled in her hair when she throws her arms around his shoulders to hug him.

Jon sighs and guides her to the kitchen, one hand positioned lightly on her waist. The coffee machine is still brewing, but it isn't long until she has a huge pot of bitter caffeine with a splash of milk under her nose.

Her clothes are rumpled, the flowing sundress a shade of yellow that casts her skin in a sickly light and clashes horribly with her hair. Ygritte hasn't bothered with hair dye in weeks and the red roots at the crown of a blue mane added to the peace symbol pendant dangling around her neck make him think of a sepia-toned photograph of Woodstock. The hemp rope has left the red marks of a noose around her throat.

"I hope you didn't find anyone else while I was away." Her voice is as shy as he has ever witnessed her to be, though her eyes could still make the curtains burst into flame with the intensity and life within.

He combs through his hair with his fingertips, quickly, roughly. "No."

The corner of her mouth twitches upwards. "I'm glad, Jon Snow."

The skin under his fingernails itches.

"What the hell were you thinking? You didn't leave me a message, didn't call. I never even knew where to start looking for you, but I tried."

Absentmindedly, she twists a lock of her hair between thumb and forefinger and starts picking at loose strands. "I did try to send you a postcard one time, but I forgot to put a stamp on it. It's probably still out there, rotting away at the bottom of a garbage can at this point, somewhere south."

He finds himself chuckling despite himself. "You always did want to go south. I always imagined I'd be the one showing you around, though."

Ygritte looks up from the surface of the coffee turned cold then, her cheeks red and her hands clasped as if in prayer.

His phone goes off in such an abrupt manner as to make them both jump.

"This is me." He mutters. "I have to go. Mormont is not someone I want on my case today."

She walks him to the door. "I'll be here when you come back."

Jon places his hands on her shoulders. "You owe me eight hundred dollars."

He manages to catch his train, grabs lunch with Grenn and Pyp and snaps at Janos Slynt when he catches the idiot breaking into the archive, rifling through sealed records. Stannis Baratheon, their CEO, summons him to his office for nothing more than a curt nod and the announcement that Slynt has been fired.

By the time he lies down on the couch back at the apartment, Ygritte has dozed off pouring over notebook over notebook of lyrics.

* * *

She pays her debt without comment and he would have never known about it had she not run from the shredder to answer the front door and left a copy of her bank statement on the desk. By the time she returns and complains about Tormund's kids playing pranks on the entire neighborhood again, he is the picture of oblivion as the piece of paper is lying exactly where she abandoned it. The document is shredded.

A few days later, he finds her old apartment for sale online as well as half the rent for his own already paid. When she looks at him with the strangest expression on her face and tells him to never leave her, he laughs at how ridiculous her train of thought is.

* * *

She's proven right - as she had predicted many times, her music career comes to a screeching halt, the microphone and guitar case and suitcase put in a corner to gather dust in peace.

He takes her along with him to family dinner as a distraction.

His step mother Catelyn is taken aback at first, but draws him aside to say that the two of them fit well together. He doesn't need her observation to know it, but he still grins. Sansa immediately pounces on the news of Ygritte's recent unemployment and less than half an hour later, she is on the phone deep in conversation with his cousin's boyfriend.

"Work for the police? Sure, I- yes, of course. I'll come by tomorrow. See you, Sergeant Clegane."

Theon tries to get a rise out of her, making innuendos marked by decreasing wit, never expecting to find an equal. He high-fives Jon, congratulating him on a taste in women he had never known he had.

* * *

There's a carnival in town.

She pulls on his hand, her flowing mane contained in a single braid down her back. The air smells of roasted chestnuts and running past roller coasters, he can all but sense the rush of adrenaline transferred from the screaming passengers to himself.

She carries around white cotton candy as big as her head, ripping at it with every step to let it dissolve on her tongue. Her hand outstretched, she offers him some of the sticky, sweet, edible cloud and he licks her fingers clean, prompting a smile from her. Her teeth are still crooked, but he is not sure he has ever cared in the first place.

Two tickets buy them seats on the ferris wheel as it slowly wakes from its slumber to begin the slow ascend through the clouds.

The sky is dark, the colorful lights all around them on the edge of blinding and still the fire of her hair is the brightest point in his sight.

Jon buries his face in her neck. She smells of smoke.

* * *

He is half asleep when he hears her.

"You're mine, and I am yours."

He feels her fingertips tracing senseless patterns across his chest. He clasps her hand and opens his eyes to see her lying next to him, her left hand propping up her head.

"Yes."


End file.
